Will We Get Rotherhamed?

Argyle Life asks the question you’ve been dreading

Well, it happened again. Argyle got another hammering [1]. It doesn’t
happen every week, but often enough to be outside what should be normal
in your average football season.

The one upside of the latest shoeing is the opportunity to write a piece combining two of my hobbies - football data analysis and gallows humour. Argyle’s form this season has provided plenty of scope for both. The club I love was writing its own punchlines from the moment we managed to spell the names of our own players wrong [2] on the opening day. As
omens go, it wasn’t hard to read, unlike the player shirts we managed
to botch.

The heavy Coventry defeat provoked me to interrogate one nagging
question. It’s not often a football team becomes a verb, but that dubious honour was secured by one unfortunate side last year. Fans of
struggling teams in the Championship this season now quickly ask
themselves one fateful question: “Will we get Rotherhamed?”

Usually, even asking the question is a search for reassurance. It’s very unlikely that your team is actually going to Rotherham its way
through the season - in other words, suffer an uncompetitive season cut adrift from both one’s rivals and hope. But with Argyle, I feared the
comparison may be becoming unsettlingly appropriate. So I ran the
numbers.

I compared Argyle’s season so far to Rotherham’s first 22 Championship games last season. First, the good news (yes there is
some). We have notably more possession (47% Argyle vs 36% Rotherham). In
the now glorious 2-0 loss to Sheffield Utd, we enjoyed 62% of the stuff.

While they rarely got hammered, Rotherham just never had the ball last season. That extra possession also means we have a couple more
progressive carries a game (13 vs 10.7). It’s not much, but we’ll take it.

But other than possession - something we’ve occasionally had but rarely deployed usefully - the overall story is a worrying one. There
really isn’t much to divide us from that Rotherham team according to several main metrics. It’s a toss up in terms of goals per game (1 vs 0.9), goals against (2.2 vs 2), expected goals (0.8 vs 0.7) and expected goals against (1.9 vs 1.8).

We have 2.6 more shots per game, but only 1.1 extra shots on target - and we’re taking shots from further out (20m vs 17.4m). We have fewer
touches in the attacking third than Rotherham per game (91 vs 111.4) and - despite all that extra possession - just a single extra touch in the
penalty area (15.2 vs 14.3). Overall, we come out on top - but many of the margins are too uncomfortably small to ignore.

We all know about our injuries - an obvious mitigation - but budget complaints don’t seem valid here. I have no direct knowledge of
respective playing budgets, but sources like capology.com [3] suggest they are at least comparable, or that Argyle’s wage bill is now
slightly higher than for that Rotherham squad.

Luckily, we are ahead in the all important measure of points per game (0.6 vs 0.8). But in my view, luck is the operative word. As much as the players have kept going and scored late goals, we were fortunate against
Portsmouth, while Preston’s implosion owed a lot to their mental fragility away from home. But the overall result is still important - we
are not adrift and a crucial transfer window lies ahead.

So there is definitely a chance to grab a half full glass of hope here if you’re so inclined. If “being Rotherhamed” means being resigned
to a hapless relegation in last place, I’m not there yet. We’re not beyond salvation and key players are hopefully coming back. But if
we’re still the data driven club we claim to be, the numbers need to quickly start heading north - avoiding south Yorkshire on the way.
*Data taken from FBRef.com, Argyle numbers listed first in comparisons.

Links:
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[1]

https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pafc.co.uk%2Fnews%2Freport-coventry-city-v-argyle&data=05%7C02%7C%7Cd41ddf1a9d7e4adb620608dd272ead50%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C638709803607305934%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=iy%2FYWOYC1pllN5TvpCiuyjVi22r%2BcTAXOPale5Q5M6M%3D&reserved=0

[2]

https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailymail.co.uk%2Fsport%2Ffootball%2Farticle-13735407%2FPlymouth-kitman-misspells-names-Adam-Forshaw-Ibrahim-Cissoko-Wayne-Rooney-suffer-4-0-defeat-Sheffield-Wednesday.html&data=05%7C02%7C%7Cd41ddf1a9d7e4adb620608dd272ead50%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C638709803607324123%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=v0%2FwApQMuQL78nuczXey6bmf9R6lAxLLgUP%2BEy1LNhI%3D&reserved=0

[3]

https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fcapology.com%2F&data=05%7C02%7C%7Cd41ddf1a9d7e4adb620608dd272ead50%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C638709803607335780%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=c0ajP7YdomYBW9gqtxq2adwcqTOeeaU9g7QGW%2Bq9RV8%3D&reserved=0